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Talk:Green Wave
I went ahead and created a redirect. Did we ever discuss whether or not Green Wave should have its own article? TR (talk) 04:09, April 18, 2013 (UTC) I don't recall any such discussion. I take it that you think this should be a separate article? In the story, it seems to be a twist to illustrate it is an ATL but it might be enough to make a new article. If we do, we could add a "See also: Red Cross" at the bottom. Incidentally, has anyone bought and read AaOP? I have seen copies of mass paperbacks in the bookstore. ML4E (talk) 22:59, April 18, 2013 (UTC) :I'm fifty/fifty on creating a new article. On the one hand it's in keeping with our policies to have one. On the other, it appears to be a small part of a short story, and is an article unlikely to grow. ::I'd leave it as it is. Seems this is one area where form should follow function, and the function is extremely limited. Turtle Fan (talk) 04:42, April 20, 2013 (UTC) :(Still haven't picked up AaOP. I'd sort of forgotten about it, actually.) TR (talk) 14:43, April 19, 2013 (UTC) :(And now I've just ordered the HC at the amazing bargain price of $3.62 from Amazon). TR (talk) 14:58, April 19, 2013 (UTC) :::Nice. I remember I picked up a HC of Ruled Britannia for $5.99 on the remaindered table when the trade PB first came out a few years ago. ML4E (talk) 16:14, April 20, 2013 (UTC) ::I acquired it somewhere along the way, but haven't touched it since, and had to check my shelves to remember I had it at all. The two Atlantean shorts are charming and were new to me when they came out, but I just couldn't ring myself to reward the laziness and cynicism of an all-reprint collection. For one original Atlantis story--something in the twentieth century, perhaps--I'd have happily paid top dollar. Turtle Fan (talk) 04:42, April 20, 2013 (UTC) "Occupation Duty" was the one story I would have liked your opinions on when I first did up the articles. If its not too much trouble, could either (or both) of you read it when you have a chance? Thanks. ML4E (talk) 16:14, April 20, 2013 (UTC) :Just read it, it was interesting enough. I still agree we have the right interpretation of the POD: Goliath killed David (which considering that no one but David expected anything else, I'm not sure why that in particular would be memorable), the Jews lost their cultural identity in the subsequent conquest and were absorbed by the Moabites. Somehow despite Chemosh displacing YHWH, it appears that Jewish monotheistic theology attached to the Moabite god. As for the Sword Buddha, not sure what that's about, but I guess it doesn't matter much. The whole world this story is set in is at least academically interesting. I would have liked to explore it more; the snatches we got outside Jerusalem either lacked context or made for stilted conversation. That's the problem with bug's-eye POVs. ::Re: Sword Buddha, I think Turtledove just needed an equivalent to radical Islam and so came up with this sect of Buddhism as a plausible alternative. ML4E (talk) 17:45, April 21, 2013 (UTC) :::I can certainly accept a religion dedicated to violence, and I don't have a problem with that being Buddhism; that faith's history is a good deal more checkered than the popular imagination realizes. But if such a faith became a theocracy, and their only foreign policy goal were to promote violence and disorder, indiscriminately and for their own sakes . . . I really don't find that plausible. Such a government would make too many enemies, bite off more than it could chew, and dig its own grave long before it could achieve great power status. Turtle Fan (talk) 18:22, April 21, 2013 (UTC) :Anything in particular you'd like my thoughts on? Turtle Fan (talk) 20:43, April 20, 2013 (UTC) ::Nothing comes immediately to mind but I do recall being uncertain on some of my interpretations of past ATL events. If you could just peruse the various articles and make comments / changes you see fit, that should be fine. ML4E (talk) 17:45, April 21, 2013 (UTC) :::I'll run through the category later. Turtle Fan (talk) 18:22, April 21, 2013 (UTC) :::Thank-you kindly, no great rush. ML4E (talk) 16:41, April 22, 2013 (UTC) :::I have a few theories about the shape of the world outside the Middle East. First of all, someone smoked a cigarette (and didn't spend half a page talking about it--this really is a different world) from which we can say with some certainty that there's some sort of global trade system going on and that one or both of the American continents are heavily involved. :::The reference to "Irish and Galatian" has me thinking that Western Europe is dominated by peoples of Celtic extraction; neither the Romans nor the Germans ever displaced the western Celts, or if they did it didn't last. In warfare between Celtic tribes in Ireland and Britain, the Irish gained the upper hand more often than not, so perhaps all the British Isles are ruled from Ireland rather than Britain. Galatian, meanwhile, is more closely associated with Asia Minor than with France; by the time the Gauls wound up in the latter place, they'd corrupted the language into Gaulish. Maybe the branch of Celts that settled Gaul stayed put instead of heading west (in which case France might be a product of the Romans and/or Franks after all). If they'd done that in OTL they'd have been dominated by the Turks, but the Turks in this timeline . . . have moved. :::Those Turks really are perplexing. They're called "the Turks of Babylonia," which of course means the Fertile Crescent. Now the Turks did colonize Iraq at different points but they never made it the center of their empire. Maybe the Turks of Babylonia are an offshoot of the "real" Turks? With the Greeks in Syria then Turks in Turkey (assuming it's not Celtic) would have only a fairly tenuous route to connect them with Iraq--unless they expanded their empire into Iran, but the Parthians are also a great power, so that seems unlikely. :::More perplexing still is the reference to the Turks bringing their particular Buddhism "down off the steppe." This may be a bit subjective but I've always understood the western edge of the steppe to be in Kazakhstan. That leaves, best case scenario, five or six hundred miles of Caucasus before the eastern border of Turkey. The ancient Turks were nomadic and did wander into Central Asia from time to time, but it's still a kind of a stretch. :::Of course in OTL the main driving force that brought central Asian influences west was the Mongol conquests, and they famously did reach Baghdad, which if it exists presumably lies within the borders of Turkish Babylonia. The Mongols were pretty ecumenical but Buddhism did eventually take hold as the majority religion (though they didn't go in for forced conversions in conquered provinces, except when they got embroiled in Tibetan holy wars), and of course they were a pretty violent lot. They, or some other Central Asian people taking their place a la Super Basil, would seem to be the likeliest candidate for bringing Sword Buddhism to Babylonia, where the Turks found and adopted it. But that's not the Turks bringing it down off the steppe, is it? ::::With respect to Turks, Turtledove may be referring to Turkic Peoples which seem to be more extensive than what TF mentions. I bring it up because he also had Tatars on the Haven steppes who are a related subgroup. As such, its an ethnic group rather than a national group from Turkey or the Ottoman Empire. ML4E (talk) 16:09, April 25, 2013 (UTC) :::Elsewhere there's reference to the Middle Kingdom, which is China of course. Possibly still a monarchy, but not necessarily; it's been 100 years since Sun Yat-Sen chucked the Qing out, and the preferred pictograph for China is still 中国. And then there's Novgorod, which is obviously some sort of rump Russia. That's everything I was able to piece together from the available clues, that plus of course the main points about the Jews being absorbed into Moab after Goliath killed David. Turtle Fan (talk) 20:28, April 22, 2013 (UTC)